When I first started recording records onto cassette back in '76, I'd have the level just occasionally touching the red on my Dad's music centre so I'd be getting each album or song as loud as it could possibly be without distorting {or distorting too much, which is another convoluted story from my convoluted existence !}. Fast forwarding to the early 80s and using a walkman and travelling on the trains, having my music recorded loud was a necessity. Even the soft soul albums I'd record loudly so when hurtling from Kings Cross to Hounslow West on the Piccadilly line, I could hear Gladys Knight as easily as Judas Priest without ever having to touch the volume control. It really came into it's own when I rode a bike. It used to take me 45 minutes to cycle to work and no way was I going to be touching volume knobs ! So I recorded with plenty of level {it also saved me battery power as I didn't have to turn the walkman up so loud}.
I pretty much do that now. When I play tapes in the car or van, I rarely have to touch the volume and if I'm doing stuff around the house, if what I'm playing is a variety of different artists from different albums or a singular artist's album, I set the volume sufficiently high so I can hear whichever song is playing. I must admit, I've never found the discrepancy of volume between one album and another to be a speaker shattering problem, such that I couldn't have everything on one volume setting. Obviously some songs will be louder or quieter than others, but never problematically so.